


it's all a mystery

by outruntheavalanche



Category: Little Miss Sunshine
Genre: Abandoned Work - Unfinished and Discontinued, Canon Gay Character, Flashbacks, Gen, Not Beta Read, Not!Fic, Post-Movie(s), Vignette
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-25
Updated: 2013-02-25
Packaged: 2017-12-03 14:21:56
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 435
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/699198
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/outruntheavalanche/pseuds/outruntheavalanche
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>“Uncle Frank, how old were you when you realized you liked boys?”</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	it's all a mystery

**Author's Note:**

> This was supposed to be a series of Frank-centered vignettes but I failed at writing. 
> 
> I mentally placed the ~flashback~ vignettes three years after the assassination of John F. Kennedy, so Frank would be 48 and Sheryl would be 46 when the events of _Little Miss Sunshine_ take place. 
> 
> Hastily picked title from "Fight Test," by The Flaming Lips.

_“Uncle Frank, how old were you when you realized you liked boys?”_

_“I think I always knew I liked boys.”_

_“Even when you were my age?”_

_“Even when I was your age.”_

_“But _I_ don’t even like boys! Boys are _icky_!”_

_“Maybe you do and you just don’t know it yet. Or maybe you don’t, and you’ll find out later.”_

_“What do you m—”_

_“Olive, eat your asparagus.”_

_“But Mom—”_

“Olive.”

* *

Frank was barely just eight, Sheryl was not yet six.

Sheryl had a black doctor’s bag and a plastic stethoscope. 

Frank took the bag and pretended it was a purse. He slipped the strap over his arm and walked down a pretend runway—in reality, it was a yellowed patch of grass that had died ‘cause Dad sprayed it with something and killed it—waving his hand like Jackie O, like a beauty queen.

“You’re not playing right,” Sheryl said.

“It’s make believe, I can be whoever I want and I don’t wanna be some dumb doctor,” Frank said.

“But it’s _my_ game.” Sheryl pounded her fists in the grass. “I wanna be the doctor, Frank!”

Frank ignored her tantrum and gave her the Jackie O wave. “Look, Sheryl, I’m Jackie O!” He imagined he had his own pink pillbox hat and matching pink power suit. Frank imagined a handsome husband sitting next to him.

“You can’t be Jackie O,” Sheryl cried, getting to her feet and brushing away bits of grass she’d pulled up during her tantrum. “Jackie O’s a girl, Frank. You’re a _boy_.” She said _boy_ like it was a curse or something.

Frank didn’t really want to be Jackie, honestly. He liked being a boy. He liked getting dirty and tearing holes in the knees of his jeans and having blanket forts and tree houses that belonged to him and Dad only, because they were boys. He liked having a weenie—Mom told him not to say that word, not to even think it because God would know and then God would tell her and she’d wash Frank’s mouth out with soap and give him a spanking—but he wanted the handsome prince too.

* *

_“Uncle Frank.”_

_“Olive?”_

_“Were you born gay?”_

_“Yes, Olive, I think I was.”_

_“You mean you’re not sure?”_

_“I guess I haven’t really thought about being gay. I’ve always just... been gay. Even when I was trying to not be gay.”_

_“Why would you try to not be gay?”_

_“There are people out in the real world who don’t like who I am, simply because of to whom I’m attracted.”_

_“That’s rude, Uncle Frank.”_

_“I agree.”_


End file.
